STATE COLLEGE-- Even head coach Patrick Chambers was a little surprised at his team's scoring output. The Penn State men's basketball coach looked at the box score in front of him and that 78 in the total points column left him with a smile.

“Honestly guys, if you told me we were going to score 78 points I would've said, 'You're crazy.' We're a 60's team,” Chambers said. “We've got to score in the low 60s, high 50s. It was nice to see shots fall. … It's better to have everybody spread the ball out and sharing the wealth, which I think you saw (Saturday).”

Behind double-digit point totals from four different players, the Nittany Lions reeled off their highest-scoring performance of the season and beat Army, 78-70. D.J. Newbill led the way for Penn State (5-4) with 19 points while Jermaine Marshall, Ross Travis and Brandon Taylor chipped in 16 and 14 points a piece.

In a game that Penn State lead by as many as 15 points, Chambers' team let Army hang around. A layup from Kyle Wilson put Army within two points with 12 minutes remaining in the game. Sensing his team's tiredness and fearful of letting the lead squander any further, Chambers called a timeout. The coach called his final one with just under six minutes to go.

If he had a healthy team with a deep bench he wouldn't need to do so, but with injured point guard Tim Frazier done for the season with a ruptured Achilles tendon, this is what Chambers will have to do.

“I just told them to keep playing hard,” Newbill said of his advice to the team in the huddle. “They made their run now it's time for us to make the final run to win the game. Basically I was just trying to motivate the guys to keep playing. … We had to keep our energy the same way and just be stoic. If stuff went wrong, keep fighting.”

Ross Travis turned in a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds. His versatility playing down low and sometimes even switching and bringing the ball up the floor resulted in him being on the court for 38 minutes. It was a physical challenge for the 6-foot-6 sophomore who Chambers will continue to look to for increased production.

“He welcomes that challenge. He wants to be a big-time player and big-time players want to be challenged and they want to play,” Chambers said. “He doesn't care what position he plays, he just wants to be on the floor.”

Travis was more aggressive with his shots on Saturday, attempting the second highest total (11) on the team behind Newbill's 15 takes. Travis even attempted five 3-pointers and will need to continue to square up shots to help balance Penn State's offensive production.

“I've always had confidence I've just been waiting for the shots to fall and they're finally falling,” Travis said. “That's a big part of it.”

Redshirt junior Sasa Borovnjak started in place of Jon Graham, a move Chambers said was made because of Borovnjak's leadership and the coach's desire to help the redshirt sophomore continue finding his confidence.

A win for Chambers' team is the biggest confidence boost it can get right now. After many projected his team to struggle to win games, especially after Frazier went down, the coach savored Saturday's win.

“It's a win and we'll take it,” Chambers said. “Again, nobody thought we'd win a game and we just one three so there's some positive right there.”